The standard competitive format is the common rule set used by the largest and most serious TF2 leagues. Not all leagues follow all of these rules exactly, but most major ones do, and most competitive players scrim with them on. Settings not listed here are either default, don't impact gameplay options, or significantly vary by league.

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Team Sizes

Teams are limited to 6 players each. Most leagues allow teams to start with 5 players if they are unable to field a sixth (though it is common practice to give opponents extra time to find all of their players if they are having trouble). Teams unable to field more than four players generally incur a forfeit loss.

Criticals

All non-random crits still function - for example, headshots from a Sniper Rifle will still deal critical damage. Backstabs do not critical hit, but still deal 200% of the targets current health.

Damage Spread

Damage spread is disabled.

This means that damage randomization is removed, but damage ramp-up and falloff based on distance still occurs.

Weapon Spread

Pellet spread with tf_use_fixedweaponspreads 1.

Fixed weapon spread is enabled.

This means that pellet-style weapons (Shotgun, Scattergun, Force A Nature, Shortstop) fire pellets in a nonrandom pattern. The pattern is composed of 9 hitscan paths spaced like a 3x3 grid, with one extra pellet going down the center (or, for the Force A Nature, two extra going down the center and one extra going down the middle-right path).

Stopwatch

Attack-defend maps use stopwatch.

This means that if both teams capture the same number of points when on offense, the team that did so faster wins that round. There are cases, for example, if a team caps three points on a Payload map, but they didn't complete the full map, then the other team is able to use the default game time to cap one point high than the other team. They may also still win if they are able to get the three points faster than the other team.

Timed CTF

CTF matches are played to a specific time limit (as opposed to score goal, though there may be a mercy rule).

This means that a given half of a match will continue playing until the timer runs out. Most leagues tally points from all halves into final scores (assuming there is more than one half) to determine the winner. Some leagues enact mercy rules, which end the game early if one team gets an insurmountable point lead over the other. Crits on capture is disabled.

Teamtalk

Teamtalk, if specified at all, is enabled.

This means that team members can use in-game voice and text chat with each other even while dead (though most teams use external voice programs like Mumble regardless). Unfair ghosting is prevented by only allowing dead players to spectate allies, with third-person and free-roam spectating disabled.

Customization

All game models, textures, and particles are forced to TF2 defaults via sv_pure 2.

The wait command may or may not be disabled. All other scripts are allowed.